Bern police use tear gas to avert clash by hockey fans

The Bernese cantonal police used tear gas and rubber bullets against ice hockey fans in Biel on Monday evening. According to the police, they were able to prevent supporters of the two ice hockey clubs, EHC Biel and SC Bern, from clashing. The visiting fans had already set off firecrackers and pyrotechnics on their arrival at Biel railway station, the police announced on Tuesday. After the game, verbal provocations and confrontations between the two fan camps broke out outside the stadium. +Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox The police asked the fans to leave to no avail. In order to prevent a direct confrontation between the two groups, coercive means were used. Translated from German by DeepL/jdp How we work This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English.